


The shortest of seasons before (non) repentance

by orphan_account



Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: Casual Sex, Developing Relationship, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-02-24
Updated: 2012-02-24
Packaged: 2017-10-31 17:10:26
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,970
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/346477
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Germany steps out of his comfort zone in the name of spontaneity, finding out a few things along the way.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The shortest of seasons before (non) repentance

The moment Germany looked away from the board displaying the arrivals and departures at odd intervals, she walked towards him, pulling the same rolling luggage he recognized from her past visits. _Ecru, not brown_ , she had said once, and he still remembered it.

"Somehow, I was expecting a placard with my name in fancy handwriting."

"Why would you expect that?"

Hungary shrugged, blowing the hair out of her eyes. "I'm sorry for the delay. If I had known…"

"You're early, things considering." He expected the other NATO member states in a couple of days from the present date; the flights had been booked and the hotel reservations made with weeks in anticipation.

"I guess I am."

Not too far from them, a couple embraced each other. The young man went as far as making his companion twirl around him, a gesture that she paid in kind by kissing him, completely unabashed. Young people these days were fond of replicating American movie scenes and rather uninhibited with their affections, not that he terribly minded. Spontaneity was something he would have liked to possess. If anything, to put an end to the time wasted telling jokes at his expense, but never to the point of sacrificing efficiency and the fulfillment of schedules in a smooth manner. It was nothing but an inane tug of envy in his heart — _atrophied and stiff like wooden planks_ , that was how one of the gags went— but it was gone as quickly as it came.

Hungary gave them an approving beam, then turned to him. "How long have we known each other?"

"Centuries, isn't that right?"

"Then, we might as well..." She beckoned him closer and planted a kiss on each of his cheeks.

"Welcome to Berlin," he said, certain that all vowels and consonants that left his lips were in the appropriate order and not scrambled like an alphabet soup. He double-checked, in fact.

"You didn't have to wait for so long. I could have called a taxi."

"I wouldn't allow that," Germany said, offering his hand. The familiarity of centuries also made it so that one of his spare rooms was ready with fresh apple-scented sheets and warm knitted covers. "And certainly not with this weather."

"It does good for my finances." She chuckled and handed him the handle of her luggage. "Um, I think I left some lipstick on your cheek."

"Did you?"

"Uh-huh. Now you look like a child who was kissed by his aunt against his will," she announced, and it really shouldn't have, but it made him flinch.

"Do I look like a child?"

Her eyes focused on him for so long he almost regretted to have made the question. "Anything but," she said, balancing her weight on her toes to wipe his skin with her thumb.

"Well, you certainly look far too young to be an aunt of mine."

"And people say you aren't charming, Germany." She took his free arm, letting her own hang from the hook of his bent elbow. "Is your brother home?"

"Brother is away on a mission, or so he said. I'm afraid he's causing ruckus in Vienna as we speak."

Hungary made a face. "Enough to make Austria reconsider his neutrality? I'll have to check on him later," she said, sighing. "But well, at least that dolt isn't here. No offense."

"None taken. Do you mind if we make a stop at my office? I need to retrieve some papers. After that, and taking advantage of the fact that you're a couple of days early, we can work on our bilateral matters. From home, if you prefer."

"You do make it a rule to bring work home, don't you?" Hungary shook her head, sighing again. "Sure, I don't mind."

Germany tried to read her expression but her face was turned away. "I can't exactly help it," he said on his defense, hoping it would be enough to engage her interest. "Even my brother has commented about it. And with commented, I mean that he yelled at the top of his lungs."

She snorted, lips pressed together to avoid laughing. "I don't like to agree with him, but you should enjoy yourself. Carnival," she raised her eyebrows, "is as good an excuse as any."

"I have tried," he started and did not finish. There was little else to add.

"The important thing is to keep trying. I try, every day—" Hungary walked a few steps ahead, letting go of him. He did his best to understand the rest of her words, but the sound of her voice got lost among the racket.

.

Her heels had a staccato rhythm to them as she paced on the floor. The sound had blended in with the background noise without him noticing, right next to the shuffling of files and the tapping of keys. Nevertheless, he missed it when it was gone for longer than expected.

"...manufactured goods, that's about right," he said. "Yes?"

"Over twenty-five percent," she replied, leaning on the threshold. "Isn't today the day where men end up tie-less? You know, powerless?" Her eyes shone with an odd light.

His fingers smoothed the non-existent wrinkles of his collar as he gulped. "In Rhineland."

"I wish I could go snipping men's—"

"Ties?"

"That, too." She placed a hand on the arch of her hipbone, for that was what it was, a suitable way to refer to that area of her anatomy ―and any human being's, for that matter― even if it led him to notice other areas he wasn't sure he was supposed to notice. Then again, he wasn't visually incapacitated. "Have you ever had your tie cut off?"

"Not really."

Hungary hummed as a reply and eyed the file she held in her hands, so he considered it a cue to return his attention to the screen, comparing the data from this year with the one from the year before.

"But the question is," she picked up the topic again, "do you wear a cheap tie on days like this one?"

 _No, as a matter of fact, I don't_. That was what he had meant to say, concealing the precautions he took each year, lest someone were to think that he was eager to take part in the customs like a regular citizen instead of the embodiment of all of them. He was someone who carried the responsibility on his shoulders so that others didn't have to, and regardless of how much he would have liked to―

Germany frowned upon the route his thoughts were taking. "I'm of the opinion that one should always be prepared," he said, and if she didn't understood the underlying implications of what he was saying, it was just as well. Desirable, even.

"Should I cut it, then?"

He gave a few clicks around, minimizing windows and restoring them again to seem busy. "I don't think you're supposed to ask."

The cut wasn't clean but jagged, a testimony of the quiver of her fingers and that of his shoulders.

"Your laughter." Hungary smiled as she tossed the fabric above her shoulder. It landed in the paper-only recycle bin.

He cleared his throat and gave a shrug with all the nonchalance he could muster, which didn't quite amount to much. "What about it?"

"It's fairly deep."

"Ah," Germany said, not really following what she meant. "As in, unpleasant?"

"On the contrary, it's quite pleasant. You should laugh more often."

Prey to a spell of self-consciousness, he averted his gaze and appreciated his new dressing style instead. He felt a little trendy, if he had to be honest, almost ready to walk around Prenzlauer Berg without feeling completely out of place.

"Snow," Hungary announced all of a sudden, nose pressed against the windowpane.

"So it seems," he answered, yet unaware that he would end up going after her with the stump of his tie flying in the winter air. 

Upon watching her from a certain distance, it occurred to him that it suited her to do the things that he could not. To breeze into the cold, to dance and smile as though she could hear Austria's violin, to―

"Oh shit."

―curse as she slipped, to fall gracelessly and still laugh.

He made his way to where she lay, barely keeping his balance. "Are you all right?"

She let out the deepest of sighs and settled on the ground, her long wavy hair spread all over the incipient white. "I would like to believe."

The snow was starting to nest on her skin and clothes, so he did his best to shield her from the weather by placing his hands at her sides. "What would be the formula to have a sunny disposition?"

"I'm not a bundle of joy, I pretend. First, you need to be dead inside." She laughed again, the tolling of bells from far away. "I jest. Or maybe I don't."

"The proverbial Hungarian gloom," he said, and she nodded. "So we are not too different, after all?"

"I excel at that, though. God, my rear is freezing." She looked up at him, over a thousand years of nomadic roots and sheer feminine inscrutability right there in her eyes. "I owed you a peck as compensation for your tie, didn't I?"

" _Bützchen_ ," he whispered, all reference materials that he had ever read on the subject blurring into a clutter of nonsense as he met her lips.

Hungary buried her fingers in his hair, just about the grating of flesh that he expected and the kind of tenderness that he didn't. He parted his mouth at the same time he closed his eyes and let things be, learning how to follow her lead instead of getting in her way, how to welcome the brush of her tongue against his palate and how to, overall, let her have her way with him.

He also meant to commit to memory each split second, if only to attain knowledge that would be useful for time to come, but she had him stunned. It was the price to pay for the warmth that was now spreading down his neck and settling nicely below his ribs: the stillness of his thoughts.

.

Once inside, he dusted his suit and she collected snowflakes from her hair without saying a word, her back facing him in what he feared was the ensuing awkwardness, if not the first pangs of regret. He hoped against hope that it wasn't the case. Otherwise, the shame was going to strike him dead right there and then, instead of merely eating him away for days without end. 

In an attempt to think of something else, he looked through the window. The snow and all of its magic stood beyond the glass, swirling away from his grip, and Germany was left with the certainty that the timeframe to build a bridge from point A to point B was closing in. That, of course, if the chance wasn't already lost in an irreversible fashion thanks to the stretch of the silence, his silence and hers.

At last, she turned and smiled at him. "I can make some coffee, if you don't mind me tampering with your appliances."

Instead of answering, he held her pinky as though that was enough to coax her into staying. He brushed his thumb against all of her knuckles until he realized the twitching of his face made everything appear less eloquent than it was supposed to be and he was forced to let go, thoroughly ashamed. As a snowball making its way down a slippery slope and gaining momentum, he started to sweat, his blood pressure skyrocketed and the distinctive ringing in his ears left him, for all effects and purposes, hearing impaired. "It's hot," he blurted.

"In here? Very," Hungary agreed.

"I think I'm having a stroke."

"Please, don't." She chuckled and caressed his face. "You don't need to say anything. It was nice."

 _Was_. A part of the past, already, without consequences into the future.

"And what if―"

He would regret speaking up, of that he had no doubt. But wouldn't he also have regrets, if he remained silent? Wasn't this always how it went, the weighing of pros and contras and as result, nothing but missed chances?

 _You can't ask him about humanity and expect a quick answer. He'll get back at you after he conducts a study on that_.

"What if I wanted―"

She looked kindly at him. "Then, it doesn't need to mean anything. Just that we're here."

.

Germany lay next to her as she worked one-handedly on the buttons of his shirt. "I have never been with a woman."

"It's alright. Let's get you out of this." With nothing more than a stretch of her arm, she unbuckled his belt too. He thought of saddles and Magyar hussars atop cavalry horses. "Let me know if you have second thoughts."

"Not anymore," Germany said, but he still seemed to choke on his words. His hand came to rest on her waist, heavy and motionless until her go-ahead made him venture to reach the zip of her skirt.

"Should you want to repeat the experience, it's just fine to take time. We women appreciate the build-up." Hungary let his shirt slide back and made a path of kisses from the tip of his shoulder to the corner of his lips.

His fingertips brushed the outline of her face, the sun-kissed skin that he remembered from his youth and which now shone paler. She had always been beautiful and rough in equal measure, soft-spoken when she willed and with an air of wildness to her stance when angered.

He took her hand between his and kissed her fingers, tasting the scent of soap and earth, the unfamiliarity of her skin. It was strange to think of her as a lover, almost as strange as it had been to go without her for so long. She, who had remained in his orbit for as long as he could remember, had been absent for nearly half a century, taken away just like his brother.

"How was life on the other side?"

She exhaled, warm breath against his neck. "Grim. Lonely," Hungary said, eyes lost somewhere far away. "You wouldn't believe the bizarre things we had to bow down to, the endless lines we followed without even knowing what was on sale that day, the certainty that each of our steps were being watched. Prussia must have told you."

"He left many things out, I feel."

"It's not always pleasant to remember," she conceded, stroking his arm. "And yet, sometimes I feel nostalgic. When the last of Russia's troops left, I felt at the top of the world. From then on, it's been but a fall from grace."

Hungary nibbled his ear, making him turn and top her. Her hands traveled down his chest and then at his sides, stopping at his hips only to take a hold of his waistband and yank his pants down. He gasped against her lips.

"I'm still clothed," she whispered as though letting him on a secret, kicking her heels away and rubbing the ball of her foot against his calf.

His face was impossibly warm as he opened her blouse, aiming for the precision needed for watchmaking, but failing. Hungary guided his hand, revealing her body little by little, her taut stomach, the start of her navel, the ghost of scars all over her skin. She led and he, placing his trust entirely in her hands, complied.

"Here," she said, tousling his hair with one hand, all the while she pressed his palm against her chest with the other.

Germany caressed the curve of her breasts and dropped tiny kisses around her nipples. "Like this?" he asked, furrowing his brow in worry. Her smile was wide and so bright that it made him feel warm inside, even if his skin was made of nothing but goose bumps.

Her bare legs wrapped around his waist, encouraging him until he fit inside her and her figure blurred before his eyes. "Faster," she spoke under her breath, digging her nails into his back as he rocked his hips to please her. "No need to hold back, there."

"I'm sorry."

No, with her there was no need to hold back. He thrust until she shuddered in his embrace and smiled against the hollow of his shoulder. It marveled him that she should be so happy about it, and that his involvement had something to do with the contentment written on her face.

"For God's sake, enjoy yourself," she said then, and when both of her hands took hold of his buttocks and steered him into the right rhythm, he jolted with such an embarrassingly loud grunt that it made her giggle. "Like _that_."

He would have liked to say that he loved her, and for that to be true. It struck him, at that very moment, that nothing was more important to say, but it seemed out of place, something he might consider foolish once he came to his senses. _It doesn't need to mean anything_ , that was what she had said, so he bit his tongue and held the back of her head, touching his forehead to hers.

Hungary stroked his thigh and kissed the line of his jaw, and he watched the droplets of sweat covering her body, the flush on her skin as it faded away, her parted lips, the whole of her. She, who had always been part of their world ― _bruises for Prussia, kisses for Austria, smiles for Italy_ ― was now part of his own personal story, too.

"Thank you," he said, voice hoarse and skin still on fire. She shook her head and brought her index finger to her lips, drawing him close to whisper in his ear.

 _Secrets, for Germany_.


End file.
